https://www.facebook.com/110047718058030/

Jon Ward, MD, Panama City, FL (2026)

05/28/2026

Luke Murphy — Candidate Series, No. 5

Closing out the candidate series with Murphy’s profile. Norton, Power, and Rogers profiles already up. Same lens for each. After this one, I’ll take some time before sharing my endorsement.

Murphy’s Record as Soldier, Author & Businessman

▪️ Two Iraq combat tours. Purple Heart.
101st Airborne Division.

Led a fire team during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Returned for a second deployment in 2005-2006 as a Staff Sergeant leading a reconnaissance team. Awarded the Purple Heart and multiple Army commendations for service during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

▪️ Recovery from catastrophic combat injury.

April 25, 2006, Sadr City. Staff Sergeant Murphy was leading a reconnaissance team when his Humvee triggered an EFP — the deadlier type of IED, capable of piercing armored vehicles. The blast traumatically amputated his right leg above the knee and severed his left leg in half. Still conscious, Murphy gave orders for the driver to crash into a wall because he knew the vehicle was about to explode. Medical evacuation, Landstuhl, Walter Reed. Endured 30+ surgeries over 12 months. Medically retired in 2007. Subsequently earned an FSU degree in Political Science (2011), ran marathons, and built a public speaking and real estate career.

▪️ Award-winning author and national speaker.

Co-author of Blasted by Adversity: The Making of a Wounded Warrior (2015), which won the Florida Authors & Publishers Association Gold Medal President’s Book Award. Endorsed by Gens. Stan McChrystal and Richard Cody — two of the most respected military leaders of his generation. Speaks for Fortune 500 companies, the Pentagon, and university commencement audiences.

▪️ Florida real estate broker. Multiple professional roles.

Partner at Southern Land Realty (Tallahassee), specializing in working farms and recreational lands. Also works at Mid Florida Prosthetics and Orthotics coordinating care for amputees and orthotic patients. Active national keynote speaker.

▪️ Q1 2026 fundraising: $135K, no self-funding.

Raised $135,410.13 between January 1 and March 31, 2026 — essentially all of it in the six weeks after his February 11 candidacy filing. 100% from individual contributions. No party committee money, no PAC money, no candidate self-loans. $130,561 cash on hand entering Q2. A grassroots-style fundraising profile in a field where other candidates have leaned heavily on self-funding or institutional money.

▪️ No elected office, public agency leadership, or legislative staff experience.

Murphy’s professional record is personal accomplishment — military service, business ownership, speaking career, and advocacy for wounded veterans. He has not held elected office at any level, served on legislative staff, or led a public agency. Voters weighing the federal role can decide how much pre-existing governance experience they want their representative to bring to Washington.

What’s on his side.

Genuine combat hero with a documented record of post-injury accomplishment. Author of an award-winning memoir endorsed by some of the most respected military leaders of his generation. Built and runs a real estate business in Tallahassee. Opened for Donald Trump at a 2015 campaign rally; recognized by Gov. Rick Scott in his 2015 inauguration speech for entrepreneurial spirit and post-injury recovery. The grassroots fundraising profile — all individual donors, no party or PAC money, no self-funding — suggests a base built person by person.

Endorsement coming. Same lens applied across all five candidates.

05/26/2026

Austin Rogers — Candidate Series, No. 4

Working through the FL-2 Republican field one candidate at a time. Same lens for each. Norton and Power profiles already up. This is Rogers. Murphy Thursday. Fundraising comparison and my own vote announcement coming after all four profiles.

Rogers’s Record as Senate Counsel & First-Time Candidate

▪️ Genuine Bay County roots.

Mosley High alumnus. Third-generation Panhandle on his father’s side.
Rogers is a Panama City native and Mosley High School graduate. His father, Capt. Clark Rogers, was a USAF Thunderbirds Solo pilot from 1992 to 1994 and now trains pilots at Tyndall Air Force Base. His mother taught at Lynn Haven and South Port elementary schools. The biographical foundation for a Panhandle campaign is real.

▪️ Elite academic credentials.

Duke Law, Wheaton theology, Southeastern undergrad.

BA in International Business from Southeastern University (Lakeland, 2012), where he played college soccer. Second BA in Theology from Wheaton College. Law degree and MA in Theology from Duke University. Clerked for Chief Judge Steven D. Merryday, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Then practiced at the international law firm White & Case before moving to Capitol Hill.

▪️ Federal experience and legal scholarship.

Chief Civil Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee, then General Counsel to Sen. Rick Scott.

Joined the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2023 as Senior Counsel for Oversight and Investigations under then-Chairman Lindsey Graham. Subsequently promoted to Chief Civil Counsel. Moved to Sen. Rick Scott’s office as General Counsel from June 2025 to February 2026.

Published First Amendment scholarship in Duke Law Journal and Marquette Law Review, with a forthcoming article in Florida Law Review. The Washington literacy and legal credentials are real.

▪️ Trump-aligned positioning. America First, border security, law enforcement framing.

Public campaign rhetoric anchored in border security, law enforcement, military, and America First framing — matched well to the district’s primary electorate. Federalist Society member.

▪️ Q1 2026 FEC filings — Panhandle Patriots PAC. Two donors comprised the entire $2M Q1 super PAC. Both are Austin Rogers’s immediate family.

$1,600,000 from Joseph A. Daou, Rogers’s father-in-law, Clearwater Beach, FL. Lebanese-American businessman, owner of Savis Inc. Daughter Hala Daou MD married Austin Rogers March 5, 2021 (Zola wedding registry).

$400,000 from Clark Rogers, Austin Rogers’s father, Tyndall AFB, Bay County, FL. Former USAF Thunderbirds Solo pilot, 1992–94.

Treasurer in Mountain Brook, Alabama. Bank in McLean, Virginia. Both donors deposited on March 30 — the day before the FEC quarter closed.

▪️ Authorized campaign committee tells a similar story.

Of approximately $725K raised by Rogers’s campaign committee in Q1, $350K is a personal self-loan. Outside the candidate’s own pocket and his immediate family, his entire two-month operation has raised roughly $375K. About 14% of his committee money came from inside FL-2.

▪️ Family money is 87% of the Rogers-orbit total.

Combine the campaign ($725K, 48% self-loan) with the super PAC ($2M, 100% family), and approximately $2.35M of the $2.7M in the Rogers orbit comes from Austin Rogers, his father, and his father-in-law.

▪️ Recent Hill departure.

Worked for Sen. Scott as General Counsel only from June 2025 to February 2026. Eight months on the Senate payroll, then announced a congressional candidacy in his boss’s name fifteen days before the super PAC registered.

▪️ Scott has explicitly not endorsed.

Per Fox News, Scott has stated he has no current plans to endorse anyone in the race. Rogers is running on Scott’s name; Scott has not reciprocated.

▪️ The contradiction.

Panhandle Patriots PAC press release (Feb 20, 2026): support “from Bay County to Lafayette County.” FEC filing (Mar 31, 2026): two donors — one in Bay County (his father), one in Clearwater (his father-in-law).

Luke Murphy profile closes the series Thursday. Same lens.

05/24/2026

Just a little schedule change with the FL-2 Congressional candidate series. A Facebook post scheduling error had my campaign contribution post which was intended for next Friday posted last Friday.

New plan- Austin Rogers on Tuesday, Luke Murphy Thursday. Works better since no one would be paying attention over the Holiday weekend anyway. Endorsement coming in June.

05/22/2026

Friends —

Remember back in the 2010s when people running for Congress had some level of expectation that they would be part of their community, and that they would show their support by raising their campaign money from people who actually live here?

Man, I miss the good old days.

So a few weeks ago, like a lot of you, I started getting flooded with mailers and Facebook ads from candidates running for our open congressional seat in Florida’s 2nd District. And I got curious. I went straight to the public FEC filings (anyone can — it’s all at FEC.gov) and added up where each of the five Republican candidates’ Q1 2026 money is actually coming from. I classified every itemized donor by their mailing address and matched it against our district lines.

Here is what the public record shows.

Of every dollar each candidate raised in Q1 — including the money they loaned themselves to make their totals look bigger — here is the share that actually came from real donors living inside FL-2:

• Jim Norton — 85.5% from inside the district. $224,866 from 211 donors across 12 of our 14 counties. No self-loan.

• Luke Murphy — 81.9% from inside the district. $109,064 from 68 donors, almost all concentrated in the Tallahassee area. No self-loan.

• Evan Power — 23.2% from inside the district. $73,804 from 45 donors, mostly Tallahassee lobbyists and political consultants. To make the numbers work, Mr. Power loaned his own campaign an additional $150,000.

• Austin Rogers — 12.7% from inside the district. $90,866 from 80 donors. The largest single source of his outside money was $128,000 from a cluster of households in the Chicago, Illinois suburbs. Mr. Rogers loaned his own campaign $350,000.

• Keith Gross — 0.1% from inside the district. $6,750 from five donors. Yes, five. Mr. Gross personally wrote his own campaign a $5,000,000 check on March 30 — part of $5.5 million in self-funding for the quarter. Out of every $1,000 raised by Mr. Gross’s campaign in Q1, one dollar came from someone in our district.

Now, I will admit I am old-fashioned. I keep thinking that a person who wants to represent us in Congress ought to be someone whose neighbors are willing to chip in for their campaign. Someone whose dentist, accountant, real estate agent, and church friends believe in them enough to write a check.

But what do I know? Apparently the modern model is to introduce yourself to the voters by mail, after you’ve already filed the paperwork. And if you can’t find any donors, you just write yourself a check and call it a campaign.

I will have more to share later this week about who I am supporting and why. For now, the public record speaks for itself — even if it does sound a lot like the bad old days that I keep being told are actually the good new ones.

— Jon

05/22/2026

Evan Power — Candidate Series, No. 3

Working through the FL-2 Republican field one candidate at a time. Same lens for each. This is Power. Rogers Monday, Murphy Wednesday. Fundraising comparison and my own vote announcement coming after all four profiles.

Power’s Record as Lobbyist & Party Chair
▪️ 2018 DUI arrest with loaded handgun in vehicle. Tallahassee Police body cam footage. Power refused a breathalyzer.
The case took more than four years to resolve. On March 20, 2023, Power pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving. Sentence: six months probation, 50 hours community service — with a handwritten judge’s note offering a $500 buyout in lieu of service. Power’s explanation to the Tallahassee Democrat: “I was tired and a distracted driver and made a mistake.” The arrest video became public in January 2024, eleven days after Power won the RPOF chairmanship, and has accumulated over 935,000 views.
▪️ Running for federal office while remaining state party chair. Not stepping down.
Power has explicitly stated he intends to remain RPOF Chair through January 2027 — throughout the August 2026 primary and the November general election. In March 2026, the RPOF Executive Board passed Rule 33 to formalize fundraising restrictions on the sitting chair while he runs federally. Keith Gross has filed an FEC complaint alleging Power has leveraged the chair position improperly. Florida law requires resignation from many state offices upon qualifying for federal office; the party chair role is not among them.
▪️ Lobbyist for paying clients while seeking Congress. Currently registered with Ramba Consulting Group.
Power has been a Ramba Consulting Group lobbyist since 2016. The firm is among Florida’s top-25 lobbying firms, with approximately 50 paying clients per quarter and roughly $2.5–$2.9 million in annual revenue. Among Ramba’s reported clients: the Florida PACE Funding Agency, Florida Chiropractic Association, Florida Concrete & Products Association, Cellebration MIA, AT&T, Florida Power & Light, Motorola Solutions, and dozens of others. Whether the lobbying activity continues during the federal campaign — and into a potential Congressional term — is the relevant question for voters.
▪️ Took over RPOF after the Ziegler scandal.
Power assumed RPOF chair duties December 17, 2023, after Christian Ziegler’s removal amid sexual battery and video voyeurism allegations. Formally elected January 8, 2024 and subsequently won a full term election.
▪️ Strong institutional Republican endorsements.
Endorsed by U.S. Reps. Aaron Bean, Kat Cammack, Randy Fine, Anna Paulina Luna, and John Rutherford. Endorsed by Florida AG James Uthmeier. Significant fundraising capacity and political network in Tallahassee.
▪️ RNC and partisan organizational experience.
Serves on the Republican National Committee’s Rules, Election Integrity, and Presidential Nomination Process committees. Three-time RNC delegate. Republican Presidential elector in 2024. Florida GOP outraised Democrats and grew its voter registration advantage during his tenure.

What’s on his side.
Twenty years of Florida Republican Party organizational experience. Marco Rubio’s former legislative aide. Helped deliver historic Republican wins in heavily Democratic Leon County, including Corey Simon’s state senate seat — the first time that seat had been held by a Republican since Reconstruction. Strong fundraising network and significant institutional endorsements from Florida and national Republican figures. Considerable familiarity with how Washington works through his lobbying career.

Austin Rogers profile Monday. Same lens.

05/20/2026

Jim Norton — Candidate Series, No. 2

Working through the FL-2 Republican field one candidate at a time. Same lens for each. Last week was Keith Gross. This week, Jim Norton. Fundraising comparison and my own vote announcement coming after all four profiles.

Norton’s Record as Superintendent of Gulf County Schools

▪️ The scale of the job. ~$28.3M annual budget. 262 staff. 1,915 students.

Real executive experience. He has no federal track record. What he says about federal issues right now is what he says; there’s no voting history to compare it against.

▪️ The hurricane rebuild. Category 5 Hurricane Michael, direct hit on Gulf County, October 10, 2018. Schools reopened October 23 — 13 days later.
Wewahitchka High lost part of its roof. Port St. Joe High lost a huge portion of its roof and a skylight. Norton set an aggressive opening target and met it. Elementary schools temporarily housed both elementary and secondary students until the high schools could be rebuilt. Education Week ran a feature on the rebuild. Norton later described Michael as a “real-life rehearsal” for any crisis.

▪️ COVID-19: face-to-face instruction kept as the priority. Limited, strategic closures. No wholesale shutdowns after spring 2020.
In August 2021 Norton said publicly: “Face-to-face instruction is the most effective educational model.” Closures during his tenure were targeted — three days during a September 2021 local case surge, early dismissal before Christmas 2020. Through the statewide spring 2020 closure, the district delivered roughly 1,000 free meals per day to students by bus.

▪️ January 2026 swatting incident. Multi-agency coordinated response. Schools closed the following day for community recovery. No injuries.

▪️ Most recent independent financial assessment: clean. Florida Auditor General Report 2023-085 (FY2022 audit).
No internal control deficiencies. No noncompliance findings. Material compliance with federal awards. The district’s financial statements were “presented fairly, in all material respects.”

▪️ Most recent operational review: mixed, with a recovery. Florida Auditor General Report 2026-031 (October 2025).
Gulf was named among 10 Florida districts that failed to comply with statutory budget transparency requirements for FY2023-24. State district grade history: B (2021-22), B (2022-23), C (2023-24), back to B (2024-25). A single-year drop that has since been recovered.

The Allen Boyd staff role.
Norton was a field rep for U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd (D) from 1997 through July 2003. Boyd was a founding Blue Dog who voted for Iraq War authorization (October 2002) and border security legislation (September 2001) during Norton’s tenure on his staff. Boyd lost his seat in 2010 — seven years after Norton left. Voters can decide how much weight to give a six-year Democratic staff role more than 20 years ago.

What’s on his side.
Fourth-generation Gulf County resident. Appointed by Gov. Rick Scott in 2011. Won five elections since, most unopposed. The longest-serving school superintendent in Florida. Will resign as superintendent at year-end if he qualifies — clean transition, no “running for federal office while keeping the day job.”

Evan Power profile Friday. Same lens.

05/19/2026

The next two weeks — and what’s coming June 1.

I’ve run the four other major FL-2 Republican candidates through the same investigatory process I used for Keith Gross. Over the next two weeks, I’ll share what I found on each, one at a time. Same lens. Same depth.

Schedule:
▪️ Tomorrow — Jim Norton
▪️ Friday — Evan Power
▪️ Monday, May 26 — Austin Rogers
▪️ Wednesday, May 28 — Luke Murphy
▪️ Friday, May 30 — Q1 2026 fundraising comparison. Who and where the contributions come from matters as much as the candidate’s own history.
▪️ Sunday, June 1 — my endorsement.

Honest disclaimer: My investigation on these four candidates did not reveal the kind of inconsistencies I found with Keith Gross. I used the same criteria and the same depth on all five. Public statements, news coverage, social media, websites — all reviewed for material contradictions. The remaining four don’t have any.
I’ll probably be accused of being unfair regardless. So be it. The voters can read the findings and decide for themselves.

05/18/2026

Hey friends—

Most of you know I’ve been digging into who Keith Gross actually is, beyond the campaign ads and the $5.7 million he’s loaned his own campaign.

Last week’s post covered his political résumé: five runs for office across two states — twice as a Democrat in Georgia, then three federal races as a Republican in three years, including $5 million of his own dollars chasing an open seat.

This week is about something different. It’s about what Keith Gross actually did between those campaigns — the organization his own profile says he ran, and what that organization told the public it believed.

Keith Gross’s public professional profile lists him as Executive Director of an organization called the Tomorrow Foundation since 2021.

Tomorrow Foundation describes itself as a nonprofit “dedicated to educate and empower communities to preserve, protect and improve the environment.” Sounds fine on the surface.

But here’s what was published on the organization’s website during the period his profile identifies him as Executive Director:

▪️ The organization referred on its own articles to “the current climate crisis.”

▪️ It published that “animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of deforestation.”

▪️ It published that “animal farming… is responsible for 60% of the overall emissions from agriculture.”

▪️ On what governments should do about it, the article called for — and I’m quoting — “fossil fuel removal, renewable energy, and biodiversity conservation.” Fossil fuel removal. Not transition. Not reduction. Removal.

And then there’s this — the part that should put the question to rest. The article closes with the foundation speaking in its own institutional voice:
“At the Tomorrow Foundation, we believe America’s forests, grasslands, wetlands, and farms are all a part of the solution to climate change.”

“Farms are part of the solution to climate change.”

Read that one again, slowly.

The organization Keith Gross’s profile lists him as leading is on the record saying America’s farms — including the farms in Jackson and Holmes and Liberty and Calhoun and Gadsden counties — exist as part of a “solution to climate change.”

Those quotes are from an article titled “What are the Dangers of Environmental Degradation?”, published October 4, 2021 on tomorrowfoundation.org.

In the Florida Panhandle.

The same Panhandle where peanut farmers in Jackson and Holmes counties feed America. Where cattle ranchers in Liberty and Calhoun counties work land their families have worked for generations. Where dairy and timber are how communities make a living.

One more piece of context, because it matters.

The Tomorrow Foundation’s website listed exactly two named partners. Just two. They were Earth Nut Foods (a Florida company where Florida state records list Keith Gross as President) and Koala Insulation (where his public profile lists him as General Counsel since 2019).

So the organization publishing “climate crisis” language, calling for fossil fuel removal, and saying American farms exist as part of a climate change solution — its only two named partners were two companies tied directly to Keith Gross.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s an orbit.

One last thing, and this is the part that should make every voter sit up straight.
The Tomorrow Foundation’s website is gone.

Here’s the timeline, all of it documented in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which anyone can verify for themselves:

📅 October 4, 2021 — Article published on the Tomorrow Foundation website.

📅 April 2023 — Keith Gross announces his Republican primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Rick Scott.

📅 December 10, 2023 — Last Internet Archive capture of the Tomorrow Foundation website showing it live.

📅 April 2024 — Wayback’s next
attempted capture: the URL is no longer active.

📅 Today — The Foundation’s website remains offline. The full article is preserved only in the Wayback Machine.

Sometime during his Republican Senate primary campaign, the Tomorrow Foundation’s entire website went dark. It has not come back. The article — and everything else the Foundation ever published — is no longer publicly available. The full text survives only because the Internet Archive saved it.

The question for FL-2 Republican primary voters is simple: is “climate crisis” framing, fossil fuel removal, and the position that American farms exist to solve climate change what you want from your congressman?

More on the business side of all of this in a follow-up post coming soon.

Sources:
• Tomorrow Foundation article “What are the Dangers of Environmental Degradation?” · published October 4, 2021 · tomorrowfoundation.org/environmental-degradation-dangers/ · full article preserved in Internet Archive Wayback Machine

• Keith Gross public professional profile · ZoomInfo · zoominfo.com/p/Keith-Gross/3314939706

• Earth Nut Foods, LLC · Florida Department of State, Sunbiz Document

• Wayback Machine capture history of tomorrowfoundation.org showing last live capture Dec 10, 2023 and URL not active by April 2024

05/15/2026

Hey friends-

Most of you live in the Florida Panhandle, and most of you in the 2nd Congressional District. By now you've probably gotten a stack of mailers from a guy named Keith Gross. The mailers call him a constitutional conservative. The public record tells a very different story.

Mr. Gross is an attorney who has filed for, announced, or run for public office five times — three of those times in just the last two years.

In 2008 and 2010, he ran for the Georgia State House as a Democrat. In 2008, a Georgia administrative law judge kicked him off the ballot after finding his testimony about his own residency "evasive" and "uncorroborated." He ran again in 2010 — and on his own campaign website, he attacked the Republican incumbent Mike Jacobs for being a liar because Jacobs had switched from Democrat to Republican. Read that twice. Keith Gross attacked a Republican party-switcher in 2010. Then he became one himself.

He lost that 2010 Democratic primary by 36 points. Voters in his own district, in his own party, rejected him 2-to-1.
Fast forward to 2023, when Mr. Gross — now a Republican — decides to run against Senator Rick Scott. He spent nearly $3 million to get 9% of the vote. An unfunded Disney World performer named John Columbus got 6%. Gross moved the needle about one point for every million dollars he spent.

When Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress in November 2024, Keith Gross filed to run in Florida's 1st Congressional District. He lasted exactly six days. The moment Trump endorsed Jimmy Patronis, Gross folded.

When Florida's 2nd Congressional District opened up this January, Gross filed within 24 hours. He's now loaned himself more than $5 million of his own money — because outside donors aren't writing checks — to flood our mailboxes and social media with messages telling us he's one of us.

He isn't.

This isn't a man called to serve the people of Northwest Florida.

This is a man looking for an open seat.

05/12/2026

This was too funny 😂 not to post! Like the dude who fell off a roof but tested positive for Covid and was a Covid death.

Jon Ward, MD

05/28/2026

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